Central Dauphin School District voters meet school board candidates Tuesday

About 100 Central Dauphin School District residents turned out to hear from two incumbents and two contenders for Central Dauphin School Board seats at a candidates’ forum Tuesday at Central Dauphin Middle School.

The exchanges were agreeable as Region 2 incumbent Linda Dallago and her opponent, Eric Epstein; and Region 3 incumbent Chris Judd and challenger Jay Purdy described their strengths in what Epstein called a “win-win situation, with four qualified people.”

Judd and Dallago are serving their first four-year terms on the nine-member Central Dauphin School Board.

Judd, a public information officer in the Pennsylvania Senate, said he didn’t run for the school board four years ago with any “sense of outrage, just a sense of urgency on taxes” and a sense that Central Dauphin school board members were “rowing in different directions.”

The school board was wrestling with a transportation-system overhaul and a “pension tsunami” when he took office, Judd said. “The school board had a feisty reputation. Now we’re not nearly as entertaining, but we’re getting more done … we’re all rowing in the same direction and we have good leadership and budget control. I want to keep us all working toward a common goal.”

Finances and school safety are his hot-button issues, Judd said.

Purdy, a Lower Paxton Township supervisor from 1995-2001, retired last year as a communication specialist in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. He agreed that Central Dauphin School District made progress in the past four years but said it needs to go further.

Purdy said he wants better communication among teachers, parents and the school board. He said he wants the board to rotate its meetings among schools in the district. If he is elected, he pledged to visit classrooms, attend PTA meetings and write a column.

He said he’s “concerned that Central Dauphin is falling into teaching students to do well on tests but not necessarily in life,” developing “robots” who are “non-attentive, zoned out.”

Dallago, an account manager for InfoQuest Technologies, a web-hosting provider, said the school board was “dysfunctional” when she started attending meetings two years before winning her seat. “There was a lot of contention and they weren’t putting kids first,” she said.

She said her first issues as a board member were transparency and public trust.

Dallago agreed that the current school board has been “good stewards of the taxpayers’ money, we all care about the students and we’ve got a great leadership team.”

Dallago cited long experience as a volunteer in the district and her success at reviving the Panther-Ram Foundation as non-tax revenue stream for extracurricular expenses. The foundation has raised $100,000 toward a planned $2 million endowment.

Epstein, a consultant for the nuclear industry, said he supports a “fair funding formula” to reduce what he said is overpayment to cyber charter schools. His approach could save the district as much as $1.4 million, Epstein said.

Epstein ticked off a list of initiatives he’d support: town hall meetings, online forums where district members could post comments and suggestions, cable TV broadcasting of school board meetings and more discussion of action issues at board meetings before votes were cast.

He said he believes students need “strong and consistent mentoring” and that he fears “kids are losing faith in us.”

On curriculum, all four candidates said they want greater focus on technology and professional development and thee said they support alternatives to four-year colleges.

“I’m not sure college is the best preparation for the workforce for all students,” Epstein said.

Purdy said: “A college diploma doesn’t guarantee a job. There are lots of careers for kids at two-year schools that emphasize technology and engineering.”

Judd, who represented Central Dauphin on the board of Dauphin County Vo–Tech, said it is “horrible” to push all kids into college when for some a vocational education is “a viable, proud path.”

Georgia Smee, co-president of the Central Dauphin Education Association, asked the candidates how they’d get input from teachers and residents.

Epstein said he’s committed to monthly town hall meetings and “if I have to do more, I’ll do more.”

“Too often, teachers are vilified,” Purdy said. “We’ve got to get over that and get to being a team … and we can’t get along as a team with our hands around each others’ throats.”

“We never want to do anything, curriculum-wise, without teachers’ input and consent,” Judd said. “We don’t represent the administration.”

Dallago said she’s been attending PTA meetings for 20 years. “I feel teachers are the ones I need to hear, because they’re in the schools.”

The candidates’ forum was sponsored by the Central Dauphin Middle School PTA.

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